


Strange Little Memories

by ktbl



Category: Mortal Kombat (Video Games)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Family Reunions, Ghosts, Slice of Life, Sonya Blade Is Bad At Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26624011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktbl/pseuds/ktbl
Summary: “The file said his squad had been dropped in this area, and if something happened to them, here’s as good a place as any to see if you pick anything up.” She reached up and covered Kenshi's hand with hers for a moment, then dropped it.“Somehow my dignity is marred at being relegated psychic sniffing dog,” the telepath muttered.“Hey, you’re the one who offered to come on this.” She bumped him lightly with her shoulder.“As if I would allow you to go out of the country unescorted on something as important as finding your father’s remains. The minute Jax found out, I would be a walking dead man. Even he would go off the farm to hunt me down.”--Sonya's father died on a covert mission over thirty years ago, and his remains were never returned. With some recently declassified information in hand, along with her Colonel's insignia, she takes a flight out of the country to put old ghosts to rest - perhaps quite literally.
Relationships: Sonya Blade/Takahashi Kenshi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Strange Little Memories

**Author's Note:**

> “People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die.”  
> ― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

It had been over thirty-five years since Sonya Blade last saw her father. Major Herman Blade kissed his wife, son, and daughter, went on a classified mission, and died. No body came home. They buried a closed and empty casket a few months before the twins’ ninth birthday. And it had nagged in the back of her head for decades, and no matter the promotions she’d earned, the work she’d done, she’d never found out what happened to him.

“This is a stupid fucking idea,” Colonel Blade said as she adjusted the backpack over her shoulders. She wore the peculiar blend of civilian dress and Special Forces uniform that was her wont, boots and pants and a knit top with her uniform jacket over it, insignia at the collar.

“You need to do this,” Takahashi Kenshi countered, adjusting the long slim bag over his back. While he’d left his armor behind and opted for civilian dress that still covered him ankle to wrist, Sento had been tucked away in a bag that, so far, no one had questioned. “It’s taken you this long to get the clearance for it. You’ll never forgive yourself if you stop now.” He touched her shoulder lightly with a bare hand. The two of them stood on a hilltop in western Cambodia, surrounded by lush trees and dozens of people. Sonya looked across at what looked like a perfectly normal tourist destination - as normal as a memorial for victims of genocide could ever be.

“The file said his squad had been dropped in this area, and if something happened to them, here’s as good a place as any to see if you pick anything up.” She reached up and covered his hand with hers for a moment, then dropped it.

“Somehow my dignity is marred at being relegated psychic sniffing dog,” the telepath muttered.

“Hey, you’re the one who offered to come on this.” She bumped him lightly with her shoulder.

“As if I would allow you to go out of the country unescorted on something as important as finding your father’s remains. The minute Jax found out, I would be a walking dead man. Even he would go off the farm to hunt me down.”

“As if _you_ don’t already have a price on your head.” Sonya paused at the top of the stairs, and then stepped aside all too willingly for a tour group. Her heart drummed with a nervous anticipation. “You’ve got a few, actually. Nothing worth cashing in on. Yet.”

“I am beginning to regret joining you, if this is the sort of appreciation I get.” He adjusted his sunglasses, and took a deep breath. She looked down the open gap into the cave below, the reclining Buddha statue and the memorial at the bottom. It would be pretty enough, if this hadn’t been the site of hundreds of murders. She rolled her shoulders back, rubbing her palms on the sides of her cargo pants. It was depressing, but necessary.

“I do appreciate it.” She reached over and brushed her fingertips against his once more. “I just feel like an idiot. How am I going to know his skull, his bones, if they’re in there? I mean - fuck, Kenshi. Hundreds of thousands of people died. Millions. And if it wasn’t supposed to be linked to the service, he wouldn’t’ve had his dog tags anyway.” He caught her fingertips in his, squeezed them gently.

“Let’s go down. This is the second stop, since there was nothing at the museum. If this fails, there are other memorials, other museums, other sites. You have time, and you have authorization from your government to negotiate for the release of any identifiable remains.”

“If we can identify them. It’s depressing as fuck.”

“It’s genocide. It is not supposed to be cheerful.” He squeezed her fingertips again and then let her take the lead. She stepped carefully down the stone steps; as small as the cave was, it was cooler inside. She took several deep breaths of more cooler, mineral-heavy air as they entered the shade. Kenshi paused behind her, a hand on the railing.

“You alright?” Sonya quirked a brow. “If there’s too much here - or there’s a problem - you can sit it out. I’ll figure out an alternative.”

“I am - if you have a hope, it’s on my shoulders. Sitting this out is not an option for me,” he said dryly. “There are a lot of spirits here. They all want attention. It is.. overwhelming.” Kenshi’s voice was low, a little strained, and Sonya stopped beside him, close enough for a handful of others and their guides to head down the stairs. The tour guide spoke Korean, gesticulating at the limestone formations.

“Well, they were used for murdering people,” she pointed out as neutrally as she could manage. “I’m not surprised.”

“There are fewer spirits than I would expect for the number of dead here, but it is still overwhelming. Like expecting a small audience for a sparring match and finding yourself in the Koliseum instead. I assume that most of them did not linger.” He swallowed, and then followed her down the last few steps to the landing. A glassed-in case sat off to one side, with dozens of skulls and various remains within. Hollow eye sockets stared back out, the curves of ribs and rounded edges of femurs and ulnas stained by dirt and the passage of time. A green melamine plate with fruit and several bottles of water sat in front of the glass case - offerings, she guessed. It made her stomach churn: the sheer number of unknown, unidentified dead.

They went as far in as they could go, and Kenshi shook his head periodically. “Nothing. No foreigners,” he murmured. Her chest tightened, not realizing how much hope she’d had for this. The disappointment must have been palpable, because Kenshi touched her hand, fingers grazing against hers once more. “This wasn’t the only site, though, you said?”

“Just the biggest, the memorial.”

“Then let’s keep walking. Time might have something for you.” He followed her up the steps, and she squinted, shading her eyes against the sun until they adjusted. “Lead on. Perhaps at a more sedate pace than on the motorcycle?”

“Are you going to keep giving me shit about that?” She flashed a dirty look over his shoulder. He remained oblivious to it.

“There’s a reason I have never asked to ride with you when you get your own motorcycle out.”

“I thought you _liked_ taking risks.”

“So you’re admitting riding with you is risky?”

“Fuck off,” she said waspishly, picking up her pace. She deliberately picked a tricky path, hoping it would reflect her annoyance. He managed as well as if he was sighted, damn him, though she caught the rewarding sight of blue energy flaring behind his sunglasses.

There were twelve caves in the complex, and not all of them were as easy to get to, but a number of them had seen use by the Khmer Rouge. They worked their way through another three as the day crept on, and passed by one Kenshi flatly refused to enter.

“Children and babies,” he said shortly, when she pressed him. “He will not be there.” She reached for one of his hands, squeezing it tightly in her own, and felt the motion returned.

They stopped at the entrance to a fifth, a narrow path worn into the dirty and some haphazard stone steps. There was the flare of energy again, and Kenshi pulled off his sunglasses. His eyes shone that peculiar blue, and her stomach twisted with unexpected nervousness.

“Down here.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s something down here, Sonya. Someone. Maybe more than one. Let us check, be certain it is not.” He turned, cupping her face in one hand, and she felt herself turn into it unconsciously.

“Christ, Kenshi, I fought in the damned tournament, we’ve dealt with the revenants and Shinnok and Quan Chi, and yet this-“ She broke off, felt him brush his thumb across her cheek.

“There’s only one way to find out.” He pressed a short kiss to her forehead, and pocketed the sunglasses, stepping down and, for once, leaving her to follow.

It was two dozen steps into the shadowed dark, the air inside cool and the cave floor a pile of loose dirt. Dirt-encrusted shapes protruded from the ground, including the telltale rounded contours of skulls. Careful not to touch them, Sonya walked over, swallowing around the blockage suddenly in her throat.

Kenshi dropped down onto a rock jutting out of the wall, pulling Sento from its padded case. He lay the naked blade over his lap, and turned to Sonya.

“There are men. What I think are soldiers - and one who looks strikingly like you.”

“It’s the nose. Ten bucks says it’s the nose.”

“And the jaw. Shall I try, Sonya?”

“Sure. I mean, worse comes to worst, we sit here and fight a bunch of ghosts. It’s been a few months since we had really weird shit to deal with.” Her throat and mouth was unaccountably dry.

Kenshi chuckled, and lay his hands on the blade, blue energy leaping up from nowhere, and a dozen susurrations of whispers she’d never heard filled her ears. He spoke softly in Japanese, invoking something - she had no idea what, and wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Her eyes rested on her partner for a minute, then turned back to where the skulls and bones peered out.

The ghostly figure of her father stared back.

“Major Blade.” Her throat seized up at the apparition, pale and limned with the same faint blue as Sento’s energy. He looked much as she’d known him, the foggy memories and the photographs that remained. He was in combat dress, and he looked as startled as she felt. “Dad? Is that you?”

“Sonya? Baby girl… That can’t be you.” His voice was the voice she recognized, but a little off, as if it was coming through some kind of filter, or a modulator. The ghost in his fatigues knelt down, coming to eye level with her.She wasn’t sure when she’d dropped to her knees, but there she was. “You’re not so little anymore, are you?”

“Not so much, no.” She reached out a hand, stopped, squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that threatened. No tears, not now. She steeled herself, exhaling slowly, and opened her eyes.

“Looking smart, though. That’s non-regulation dress.” His eyes flicked over her, taking tally of the decades gone, and his eyes stopped at her collar tabs. “Wait, what is that - full bird colonel? My girl?” The ghost’s pale face seemed to shine, shoulders sliding back, beaming with pride.

“Yeah. Special Forces,” she managed.

“Ah, pumpkin,” the ghost said, reaching out, hand passing through her knee as he tried to touch her. “I’m proud as hell. Even if it is the Army.”

“After you, the Marines said no more Blades.” She tried to joke, but her voice sounded flat, even to herself. “I went to the Academy, graduated, made lieutenant, and then a whole bunch of crazy went down.”

“You give me and your mama any grandkids? How is your mother? And Daniel?”

“Mom’s okay. She’s still in Austin. Never remarried. Daniel… Daniel died, too. I’m what’s left. But grandkids… well, you’ve got one.” Her mouth twisted, what might have been an attempt at a smile. “She’s a lot like her dad, though. Maybe she’ll be smart, and end up in the service like we did. I can hope.”

“That her daddy?” The ghost jerked his chin towards Kenshi.

“Oh, hell no. He’s -“ Sonya looked for the word to describe her partner to her father’s ghost. Talk about being on the spot. “He’s what should have been, instead of what was. So I’m making up for lost time.”

The ghost looked, narrowing his eyes at Kenshi. The dead man pointed a finger at him. “You treat her right, or I will haunt your ass. You got a sword full of ghosts, you know what that threat means. You don’t let anyone lay a hand on my girl. Hell, _you_ don’t lay a hand on her unless she asks. And you do it right and proper.”

Sonya could feel a faint heat in her cheeks at the sight of her dead father threatening her lover. Apparently she wasn’t the only one making up for lost time.

“Major Blade… with all due respect. Your daughter can - and does - defend herself. It would be a disservice to her to treat her as if she cannot. And, with respect… You are dead. She is not. I am far more concerned with what she will do to me, than what you merely threaten.” Kenshi’s lips curved slightly in a smile. If he was taken aback, he didn’t show it. “Spirits, I can handle. But no one handles your daughter without her consent.”

“Sonya, you keep that one,” the apparition laughed. “Other one musta been so dumb he couldn’t tell the difference between c’mere and sic ’em, to let you go. You keep that one. Maybe see about another grandkid with a little more sense.”

“He’s not bad,” Sonya allowed, dipping her head. “He’s the reason I can talk to you now. But I’m done with kids - and Cass is a handful on her own. Another kid, at my age? Oh, hell no. I’m all for filial duty, but that’s pushing it, even for last wishes.” She spared a glance at Kenshi, whose face had returned to a concentrated, focused neutrality. “So - we need to know… we’re here… trying to figure out what happened. You remember anything?”

“Not much, pumpkin.” The dead major shook his head. She could see the cave wall through it, she noticed with detachment. “We had a covert operation. Your mama knew we were going out of country, that was it. We were coming to see what the Khmer Rouge were up to, reports were coming in but it wasn’t sounding good. Sounding damn ridiculous, honestly. So they picked a team and we came in to get the truth of it. We were stupid, believed it was being exaggerated. Then we got caught. They didn’t take to it kindly. Brought us here, and…” He trailed off, gesturing at the walls. “Lined us up, and I don’t remember what did it.”

“I think-“ She stopped, throat suddenly swollen, words unwilling to come. She pinched herself. Report, soldier. “From the skulls we can see - and my bet is that’s why you’re still here, things keep getting uncovered - it was a shot to the back of your head. Probably with your own service weapon, or somebody else’s.” She shut her eyes and tried to stabilize her breathing. This was worse than Jax at Quan Chi’s mercy, because he could be fixed - he could be made right. There was no making it right, here.

“You bringing me home, kiddo?”

“Hope so. Gotta get permission from the authorities for a DNA test. Prove you’re mine.” She barked out a half-laugh. “And if they say yes - and we can prove one of these is you…” She gestured to the three skulls tumbled together. “I’ll bring you back.”

“Good enough for me, Colonel Pumpkin.” He winked once, the smile she had forgotten fresh on his face once more. “I’m damn proud of you, Sonya. And don’t you dare tell your mama you heard me swear or she’ll have my he-“ He cut himself off, looking down at the uncovered skulls. “Anyway. You’ve done the Blades proud. Wish I could have been there for it, pinned that insignia on you myself.” That smile again, and she tried to memorize it. “Even if you _did_ go Army.”

“If that’s the worst complaint you’ve got for me, Dad, I’ll manage.” She looked back at Kenshi, and felt a frown crease her face. She could see the muscles tightening in his jaw, a fretwork of lines across his forehead. There was a faint flicker in the energy around him and Sento. “I think we’ve got to wrap this up. Hauling his ass out would be difficult at best, and he’s been doing… whatever it is… all day.”

“I am sorry, but it is getting harder to maintain this connection than I anticipated.” Kenshi’s voice was composed, but she could hear the smallest tremor in it that told her more than anything else would.

“Sounds like it’s time to go, then.” The ghost stood up, Sonya following with a soft crack of her knees. Her father saluted her, as crisp and proper as any officer could hope. She returned the salute, and then he was simply - gone. She stared at the place, as if there was an afterimage she could burn into her retinas, and closed her eyes tightly. She could remember him. She would remember him.

She sucked in a breath through her nose and pinched her fingers across the bridge. No tears, not now, not yet. She opened her eyes, walked over to Kenshi and reached out a hand; he accepted it, sliding Sento into its sheath, and let her zip up the case again. She cleared her throat, voice professional. “Let’s get back up, and then I need to talk to the authorities, and-“

“Stop, Sonya.” Kenshi’s hands closed around her shoulders. “You’re thinking loud enough I couldn’t ignore it if I wanted to. You are consciously fighting it.”

“Not yet. Not til we’re back to the room, because I know if I start it’s going to be hell to stop.” She pushed back from him, chest shuddering as she sucked in a breath slowly, held it, exhaled in a long stream. “I can’t cry, not yet. Gotta get us back down the mountain, back to the hotel, after all.”

“He seemed like a good man.”

“He was. Ah, hell, I miss him already. Again.” A few tears began working their way out, no matter how she squeezed her eyes shut.

“That was a first. Having someone’s dead father threaten me.”

She managed a raw chuckle, forcing down the emotions trying to push take over. “You made a good save, though. Dad’ve liked you. He did like you.” She felt her breath catch again at the unexpected touch of Kenshi’s lips, warm and soft on her forehead, as if in benediction. “Probably only other way you could have earned more points would have been if you were in the service, too.” She wiped her face inelegantly with the back of her sleeve. “All of a sudden he was there and I was eight again and thinking he hung the moon. Killed me when he saw I was colonel. How proud he was.” She fell silent, her breathing choppy.

“Let’s go back to the hotel. You need to rest, and I am shortly going to have a terrible headache.”

“I’ve never seen you do that before,” she said as they climbed back up the steps, working their way back to the small temple and the parking lot. “I didn’t know you could.”

“I didn’t know if I could,” he answered. He kept one hand tucked at the base of her spine; she wasn’t sure who the contact was for. “But it was worth a try.”

“You came out here, with me, not knowing if you’d be able to do a damn thing?” She made a rude sound. “Never mind. We’ll talk about this back in the room. I want to get down and back before the sun sets. I don’t know these roads, don’t want to risk something on the bike.”

“You realize how much I trust you when I’m willingly sitting on the back of a motorcycle in rural Cambodia, correct?”

“You’re blind, it’s not like you can critique my driving.”

“At least I have a helmet.”

“Chicken.”

Sonya managed to keep everything under control as they got back to their hotel in Krong Battambong, motorcycle returned, and the door locked firmly behind them. Kenshi had sagged his weight against her on the ride, and he looked drained - skin gone pale, the furrows in his forehead settling in place. She didn’t bother to turn on the room lights, instead letting the weak light of street lights and moonlight fill the room. It lit the room enough that she could Kenshi stagger slightly and rest a hand on the wall to support himself. She knelt down to pull off her boots, head jerking up at the sound of running water. Her body tensed - who else was in the room? - until she saw the blue light of Kenshi’s telekinesis fade away.

“I thought you said you were spent. You look like shit.”

“We both need to soak. You can do the rest, but the sooner it’s full the sooner we’ll both feel better.”

She tangled his shirt in her fingers and kissed him on the corner of his mouth, fast and loose. She felt the shift of his mouth as it tilted up into a smile, and his hands settled familiarly on her hips. He turned his face just enough to kiss her properly, close-mouthed but soft, before releasing her.

“You’re good. You know that, right?” She began shedding the rest of her clothes, leaving the sweat-streaked and dirty garments in a pile. Her feet were hot on the cool smooth surface of the floor, and it felt good after the long day.

“I’ll remind you next time it’s relevant.” His clothes joined hers more slowly, the clearest sign yet to her that he was exhausted. She pulled two bottles of water out of the room’s fridge, heading directly for the bathroom and the promise of a full-body soak. She cracked open one bottle, chugging half the contents before Kenshi pulled it from her hand. He finished it off, along with a couple painkillers she passed him. They settled themselves into the tub, Kenshi first and ducking his head under the water, awkwardly submerging his upper body for a few moments. She watched him slip beneath, then straighten back up, drops streaming off his face. She stepped in, nudging his knees apart so she could sink down between them and use him as a backrest. It was a close fit, but it felt good after the day’s events. She needed the physical contact more than she wanted to admit.

They sat without speaking for long minutes as the water level rose, and Sonya moved only to turn off the tap. She settled back against Kenshi once more and closed her eyes, feeling the familiar weight of one of his arms as it draped around her. A few moments later, she could easily hear the soft, even breathing behind her.

“Thank you,” she said after a long while, voice barely audible in the near-silence of the room. He really had gone all out for her today - the crowds of tourists, walking around a forest, climbing into caves, spending an entire day with minds and spirits. His fingers brushed against her shoulder, and he buried his lips in her hair.

“It’s the least I could do.”

“I need to talk to people tomorrow about exhuming - excavating,” she corrected herself, “the remains, and DNA testing, and-“

“Tomorrow is tomorrow, Sonya. Rest now. Do not worry. We’ll get him back. We will get all of them. Even if we have to have Raiden’s aid,” Kenshi interrupted her softly. “What else are gods for, if not to owe you favors?”

“That sounds like something Kung Lao would have said. I’ll tell Raiden you want to use him as a smuggling mule,” she threatened, and felt the soft shake of his chest in laughter.

“Fujin knows the importance of family and kin. He would do it if Raiden’s sense of propriety would not, if it even comes to that. But I’m confident you have nothing to worry about.”

She twisted around to kiss the side of his neck, the easiest thing to reach, before trying to drop lower in the water. “So, what was it like, getting the lecture from a ghost?”

“What lecture?” His fingers kept moving like a metronome, gentle and reassuring.

“The don’t-touch-my-daughter-or-I’ll-kill-you one.”

“A novel experience, but worth it.” His fingers paused.

“What’s wrong?”

“I can see them, you remember. With Sento even in proximity… Even if you can’t. For one thing, at least, my vision trumps yours. Bringing him back will entail a significant amount of paternal glaring and commentary on his part, I’m sure.”

“As if you won’t ask for the embarrassing childhood stories.”

“I wasn’t going to, but now that you mention it…” Kenshi trailed off, and kissed her shoulder, settling them a little deeper in the water. She smacked at his exposed thigh, and felt another chuckle behind her. The silence comfortably enfolded them, and the water had gone tepid by the time she managed to stir herself enough to climb out. The urge to cry had abated with it, ebbing away in the darkness. She wrapped herself in a towel, and poked Kenshi awake. They stumbled to the bed, only bothering to dry off, before collapsing under the worn cotton sheet and thin blanket.

“I just realized something.” She rolled onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows.

“Do I want to know?” His voice was muffled, and he rolled to face her.

“Sento contains the swords of your ancestors, right? They guide you, you’ve said. Offer you help.”

“Sonya, I am not putting your father’s spirit in my blade for a number of reasons, least of all the parental lectures. I am well past the age of fathers telling me what to do with their daughters.” He ran a hand along the curve of her spine. “Now, putting him in something for you - so he could lecture you at all hours… I’m almost certain Major Blade would be willing to do so.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“You did say you missed him.”

The thin yellowed light from outside didn’t hide the tired but amused look on Kenshi’s face, and she swatted at him lightly. “No. He deserves a rest. A proper one.”

“He does. And you do as well. We’ll deal with the rest of it tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So Sonya was born in 1967, and some old info in one of the games says her father died when she was eight on a military operation. The Khmer Rouge began their reign of power - and terror - in Cambodia in 1975.
> 
> While looking for some interesting caves, as I couldn't get the visual of the conversation happening in a cave out of my mind, I found this, and my decision was sealed:  
> https://www.phnompenhpost.com/travel/former-killing-caves-become-sobering-tourist-destination
> 
> And if you want to find me on the internet, [Here's my carrd!](https://dei2dei.carrd.co/)


End file.
